NHS Out of Control Declares Tory Health Minister

by Editor | June 22, 2014 3:23 am

THE GUARDIAN – A Tory health minister was at the centre of controversy after she was secretly recorded saying that the government could no longer exert much day-to-day control over the increasingly stretched NHS.

The public health minister, Jane Ellison, told a private meeting of the Tory Reform Group that providing political direction to the NHS was like being on a high wire without a safety net – which she described as “exciting”.

The remarks were seized on by Labour as evidence that coalition reforms of the NHS driven through by Andrew Lansley, before he was sacked as health secretary in 2012, have created far more confusion and less clear lines of command, rather than greater efficiency.